26 votes

Firefox dying is terrible for the Web

7 comments

  1. [7]
    knocklessmonster
    (edited )
    Link
    This is a solid take that does a good job of explaining what he thinks, and why he thinks it, and I learned a lot about the engine diversity issue, which I was concerned, but uninformed about. I...

    This is a solid take that does a good job of explaining what he thinks, and why he thinks it, and I learned a lot about the engine diversity issue, which I was concerned, but uninformed about.

    I switched to Vivaldi a few months ago, but went back to Firefox because it's just easier to use cross-platform, and there's frankly the ideological component of Mozilla's support of a free and open web, instead of an ad company with a rendering engine. That crack isn't about Vivaldi, who make a damn fine browser and legitimately care about their users' privacy, but its basis on Chromium, owned by the ad company in question.

    I thought Webkit was dead, replaced by QTWebEngine in the FOSS world at least, but I guess Apple is still developing it?

    This was a pretty cool video.

    12 votes
    1. [6]
      JXM
      Link Parent
      Webkit is still Apple's rendering engine for Safari. A lot of other browsers that were previously Gecko, Webkit other custom rendering system based have moved to just being Chromium reskins at...

      Webkit is still Apple's rendering engine for Safari. A lot of other browsers that were previously Gecko, Webkit other custom rendering system based have moved to just being Chromium reskins at this point. Heck, even Microsoft has given up and just made their default browser a version of Chromium.

      It's basically just down to Blink (Chrome/Chromium), Webkit and Gecko (Firefox) and only one of those isn't backed by a giant billion dollar company.

      I've been using Firefox for well over two decades now and it's by far the best browser. Every time I had an iOS device, I'd be annoyed that I had to use Safari instead.

      6 votes
      1. [2]
        teaearlgraycold
        Link Parent
        Trillion* dollar company.

        only one of those isn't backed by a giant billion dollar company

        Trillion* dollar company.

        3 votes
      2. [3]
        yellow
        Link Parent
        I use Firefox for largely similar reasons, but you should keep in mind that pretty much all of Mozilla's revenue comes as royalties from search engines for being included as defaults. I don't...

        I use Firefox for largely similar reasons, but you should keep in mind that pretty much all of Mozilla's revenue comes as royalties from search engines for being included as defaults. I don't think the exact breakdown is known, but it seems like a safe bet that well over half that comes from Google. If Google ever decides it would rather have Firefox die, it probably could, or at least put Mozilla in a very bad place.

        1 vote
        1. stu2b50
          Link Parent
          According to their 2020 report, 86% of their revenue comes from the Google deal.

          According to their 2020 report, 86% of their revenue comes from the Google deal.

          4 votes
        2. JXM
          Link Parent
          Absolutely. That's one of the big concerns. On the bright side, it's in Google's best interest to keep funding Firefox because it helps beat back any claims of monopolization in the browser market.

          Absolutely. That's one of the big concerns. On the bright side, it's in Google's best interest to keep funding Firefox because it helps beat back any claims of monopolization in the browser market.

          4 votes